Friday Estimates by Klady
So, in classic industry style, 10,000 BC went from being underestimated to overestimated to – shockshock – a dissapointment. This is the nature of a bunch of people obsessively pretending to know something when everyone is actually playing telephone, essentially looking at the same set of numbers interpreted through 20 different prisms and, in the end, guessing. Tracking is an inaccurate science. It has a purpose, but guessing numbers at the Friday canrnival is not one of them. Nor do Friday matinees always mean what they seem to. Etc, etc, etc,
Regardless, 10,000 BC will open to half what 300 did last year, as ia lmost always the case when a studio chases a phenom. I have no followed the campaign terribly closely, particularly because I was away for a key week of it, but I have noticed that the use of images got hotter and more compelling late in the game. Since that is all you have to sell, really, it seems to me that if they didn’t have the images to sell early on, they should have pushed the movie back a bit. Sadly put, the CG animals look like something we all saw when they were selling Alexander. If that’s all there was, Jeff Robinov screwed up by spending all that money and effort on it.
But the truth is, we all know that Jeff Robinov has been a mediocre top movie exec for years now, living off of franchises that are hard to ruin while making some of the most expensive misses in movie history. Maybe marketing – still without a chief – could have done better. But you have to have the images to sell. And any exec spending more than 100 million making and selling any one movie better be thinking clearly about how they are going to sell it going into the process. Last year’s phenom + Mr Day After Tomorrow, which opened in spite of critics, who were mostly kept out, does not neccessarily + anything but mush.
Ironically, what Robinov has been best about, is making some of the smaller movies, like Michael Clayton, that don’t need to be huge earners. WB has always been defined by the big movies, however… and the studio has become a bit inept in that area, saved only by the ability to lay off costs on sucker hedge funds.
Disney tried to market to the black family audience. Disney missed… though expect that $3.5m Friday to look closer to 14 than 9 when the weekend is over.
The Italian Job minus Wahlberg and Theron equals Why Jason Statham is still stuck doing action movies like The Bank Job.
And unless international is huge, Jumper at under $80 million domestic, is easily the biggest flop of the new year. It wasn’t cheap. And it wasn’t good. Doug Liman is a mad genius… but the demand that he include big names in future projects will be an absolute must for him to get any serious money from a studio anytime soon.
I guess the horrible winter weather in the northeastern part of the country took its (predicted) toll after all.
WB was probably hoping for a $20-million-plus opening day for “B.C.,” and Disney surely expected double that inauspicious $3.5-million figure for “Road Trip.”
None of the “specialized” product (“Pettigrew,” “Married Life,” “Paranoid Park,” “CJ7”) exactly jumped out either, did they?
It’ll be interesting to see what happens when the snow (and ice and sleet and freezing rain) finally stop and the roads are clear.
I’m wondering how many of those films will be able to recover from the winter-weather-slam they took opening weekend, though.
“Road Trip” especially has to worry since “Horton” is breathing down its neck, and will surely gobble up a sizable chunk (if not all) of the “family” audience.
Anybody else read yet that Vincent Gallo was replacing Matt Dillon in Coppola’s Tetro?…
Hey, even “The Brown Bunny” was better than “Youth Without Youth”!
The Bank Job is more than an action movie for Statham, Mr. Poland.
I’m guessing the studio thought they would get Transporter #s. They didn’t see the bigger picture and treat like Trainspotting or Sexy Beast or even Four Weddings. I believe WOM could’ve led to the movie doing extremely well. Statham proves to be more than an action guy in the movie. He’s like James Gandolfini’s working-class British cousin. Michael Mann should cast him in a nice supporting role.
The movie is pretty remarkable in the way it starts out almost like a light comic caper and gradually turns the screws and becomes a real thriller.
If you leave off Cocktail, Roger Donaldson has one of the most unsung direting careers of the last quarter century. Anyone on this board remember Smash Palace?
The Bank Job is the first great movie of the year.
Must disagree on the characterization of “The Bank Job” as an action film – honestly, there is very little to no action in the thing. Instead, it’s a pretty damn well-scripted, well-directed heist movie with all kinds of characters (to say much more about that gives away a lot of the film’s secrets) that you don’t think the filmmakers are going to be able to keep track of as so much is going on, but then they do – creating a really rich, entertaining piece of filmmaking.
While yes, Statham still does stuff like “In the Name of the King” and the should’ve-been-good Jet Li match-up “Rogue” aka “War,” he’s also been compiling a pretty interesting c.v. in stuff like “The Bank Job,” “Crank” and the first “Transporter” film.
I often lament when seeing some pretty boy-actor trying to do an actioner that there’s just no new Lee Marvin or Charles Bronson out there – somebody with gravitas who can add something to crime/action roles. It’s looking more and more like that’s Statham. One day, he’s going to do his “Point Blank” and everyone’s going to be like, “Wha?! Huh?! Where’d that come from?” but it will just be the natural progression of where some of his more interesting roles are taking him.
Also, regarding “The Bank Job,” the screenwriters are Clement and La Frenais, who get most recognized as the writers of stuff like “The Commitments,” “Still Crazy” or “Across the Universe,” but if you want to look for the origins of this movie, you might want to look to one of their first projects – the Richard Burton-starrer “Villain” with Ian McShane, loosely based on the life of Ronnie Kray.
“Bank Job” is worth a look.
Heh – beat me to the punch, Jimmy the Gent, but completely agree. Glad people are digging this movie as much as I did.
I think The Bank Job looks pretty good and I’ll definitely see it, but probably not until it’s on DVD. I sure hope it’s better than Crank.
NY/Philly suburbs opened “Miss Pettigrew” day-and-date with NYC. Oscar-whoring plus nonstop heavy rain will kill her off. (Flash flood warning in New Jersey as I post this).
Bit late for the Oscar whoring, no?
I think Jason Statham is an underrated actor.
Didn’t care for Bank Job that much. As it went on, it became more and more empty and unhinged. And think of all the one-liners that fell flat.
Hey Jimmy, don’t know if you were kidding, but Mann already cast him in Collateral. If you don’t remember him it’s because he played a role that was correctly proportioned to the state of his career.
“the demand that he include big names in future projects will be an absolute must for him to get any serious money from a studio anytime soon.”
That should be a demand on Emmerich as well. Steven Strait is a godawful lead in 10,000 BC — even Hayden Christensen could have done a better job.
I finally saw Jumper, and though it’s stupid, it is consistently fun, unlike 10,000 BC which has 3 good action sequences and is a deadly bore the rest of the time.
sloanish,
I am fully aware of Statham’s “small” role in Collateral. I remember smiling when he popped up in the opening scene. People in the know took it as a sign that Mann knew how talented Statham is. He would KILL in Mann’s new ’30s gangster movie. My heart breaks thinking about him as Baby Face Nelson.
What one-liners? The brilliance of the movie is that it starts out as a light British caper movie. It’s gradually that we realize that there’s real danger in the situation they’re in.
The scene where this transition takes place is the funny-scary scene where the police are driving around from bank to bank, hiping their presence will get the crooks to break radio silence. The scene starts out funny by showing how inept the cops, crooks and ham-radio operator are. Then, somehow, the scene becomes genuinely suspenseful. You can literally feel the movie switching gears during that scene.
DP, allow me to join the chorus in praising “The Bank Job.” It’s far more than an “action movie” and much more in the line of “Sexy Beast” or “Layer Cake.” Hopefully, now that you’re off the boat you’ll have the opportunity to see it.
It seems like a 30m opening for a movie with no stars in it has to be considered a win for 10kBC, lessened by whatever they overspent to get it made.
Chucky, the target audience for Miss Pettigrew _likes_ the fact that Frances McDormand and Amy Adams are an Oscar winner and nominee. It’s a good marketing choice for that type of movie, it provides credibility to the frothiness.
Jumper wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I thought it was going to be, but when I saw it yesterday I was glad I had a free pass and didn’t have to pay $14. Although it did have Jamie Bell so I’d see anything he dishes out. And, thankfully, he was the best thing about Jumper. Hayden was the worst. How can he go from being quite decent in movies like Shattered Glass and Life as a House to having the personality of a gnat. Which is an insult to gnats.
Oh, and Semi-Pro? Ouch!
movieman, there is no way in hell “BC” was gonna get $20 mil on the first day. $15-17 mil tops.